Category: featured

“….Drive north of Warren towards the Ramsar-listed Macquarie Marshes, though, and it’s easy to see why a lot of rain will be needed to revive the land and its remaining native flora and fauna. The Ramsar Convention is an international agreement to protect wetlands, many of them hosting migratory birds, that are important to wildlife and broader ecosytem health. Australia has 66 such Ramsar sites.

“It’s going to take floods and floods and floods – just to fill up the dams,” says Mel Gray, a convenor of the Dubbo branch of environmental group Healthy Rivers as she points to a six-metre-high embankment built near the Marshes.”

Exhibition runs Fri 20 September 2019 until Sun 3 November 2019.

Watson Road, Observatory Hill (The Rocks)

This timely exhibition presented in collaboration with Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery, focuses on what is the most pressing environmental crisis of our time: the on-going devastation of the Murray-Darling Basin.

Art, by mysterious means, has a way of penetrating the hearts and minds of people prepared to pause and look. Led by Barkindji artists, the powerful revelations on display at the S.H. Ervin Gallery in September 2019, followed by Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery in May 2020, will re-enforce the need to act now and save our vital waterways.

Pumped

“People are profiteering… It’s the biggest water grab in Australia’s history.” Grazier

In Australia’s most important river system, the water is so precious, it could be liquid gold.

“People want to get water in their hands because if you get water in your hands that’s big money.” Grazier

Stretching from Queensland to South Australia, billions of dollars in tax payers’ money has been poured into rescuing the rivers and streams of the Murray-Darling Basin to save it from environmental collapse.

But nearly five years on from a landmark agreement to restore the river, something is wrong.

Cash Splash

Taxpayer dollars, secretive deals and the lucrative business of water.

“It’s a national scandal.” Water economist

Two years on from the Four Corners investigation into water theft in the Murray-Darling Basin that sparked a royal commission, the program returns to the river system to investigate new concerns about how the plan to rescue it is being carried out.

The Murray–Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) Chief Executive, Phillip Glyde, said that while some work had progressed over the past six months, concerted action in the second half of 2019 was needed to improve the outlook for six key elements of the Basin Plan.

“We have found the current level of progress varies. Good progress is being made in three areas: water recovery, managing compliance with the rules of water use and the delivery of water for the environment are maintaining a good pace.

“On the other hand, the adjustment to the sustainable diversion limit (SDL) is at risk, finalisation of some water resource plans has been extended because of delays and more work is required to implement initiatives in the Northern Basin.

“The Basin Plan arose from an urgent need to secure the future of our nation’s most important river system, and was forged in the spirit of cooperation and bipartisanship. It is a testament to the strength and importance of the Basin Plan that this bipartisanship has endured.

COMMUNITY STRATEGY TO RESTORE INTEGRITY IN THE MURRAY-DARLING BASIN PLAN

LifeBlood Alliance – 8th July 2019

The Murray Darling Basin Plan set out to save our rivers from environmental disaster. Since the $13 Billion Plan began in 2012, there has been major concerns raised with implementation, including allegations of corruption, maladministration and mismanagement.

Communities who depend on our rivers fear that if we don’t act now to bring the Plan back on track, our rivers will die and dependent communities will decline.

Here, we present a 7 point strategy to restore integrity to the Plan, so it can deliver on its key objectives – to keep the rivers and dependent communities alive and well.

In some central and western areas on Murray-Darling no ground water can be accessed by bores, as dams run close to dry

Towns in western and central New South Wales, including Dubbo, Nyngan, Cobar, Walgett and Tamworth, are facing a crisis in their water supplies within a few months unless it rains, prompting emergency planning by water authorities.